Bad Boy Ballmer
The Man Who Rules Microsoft
By Fredric Alan Maxwell

     "Ballmer is vast. Ballmer contains multitudes." This observation in the introduction to Bad Boy Ballmer leads respected investigative journalist Fredric Alan Maxwell to conclude his unauthorized biography/expose of Microsoft head honcho Steven Anthony Ballmer, and truth be told, Microsoft itself, with "Steve Ballmer can remind you of many people." This seems to be his prevailing message along with "Microsoft is bad!"

     Granted, Microsoft's misdeeds have been made public and their ruthless corporate strategies painstakingly if not gleefully reported by the media. Few companies have had more lasting influence on our lives. Microsoft has subsumed our culture, much like the Matrix, so it's therefore not surprising that Microsoft consumes the story of Steve Ballmer. Although he was the twenty-eighth employee hired by Gates and Paul Allen, Ballmer is Microsoft. Maxwell is not the first to liken Microsoft to "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry's creation, The Borg, a collective of cyborgs that assimilates everything it sees into its own metallic emotionless way of life. While "Monkey Boy" Ballmer, as portrayed by Maxwell, is passionless (he's committed to cancer research and was devastated over the deaths of his beloved parents, Fred and Bea), he exhibits a singularity of purpose the Borg exemplify. Yet at the same time the Borg contain many voices and constantly communicate with each other. In effect, they contain multitudes, much like Walt Whitman and Ballmer. Ballmer is actually more of a chameleon than the Borg is, and perhaps this is why Maxwell concludes by saying, "Steve Ballmer can remind you of many people."

     The insight into Microsoft's subterfuge, while well written by Maxwell, is just one layer in a complex portrait. Granted, the veneer coats everything. But there are nuggets of gold underneath, such as the ironic twist that Fred Ballmer helped prosecute the Nuremburg trials under Microsoft antitrust case judge Thomas Penfield Jackson. Michigan and Seattle history, as well as Jewish identity (Ballmer is Jewish) and its contribution to Ballmer's psychology give the book that touch of individuality that a portrait of one of the highest-paid American employees, and one of its most controversial companies, deserves.